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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

That's why it's aggravating to me how many cities insist on building everything at ground level. Cars? Ground level. Bikes and pedestrians? Ground level. Trains? Ground level, creating chaos at intersections. And now we have tons of scooters. Ground level, and causing chaos as people ride them without helmets and weave into car traffic.

Adding more ground level transit isn't ever going to be the solution, and widening lanes doesn't ever seem to work. Cities like LA need to stop being bought off by the developers and instead build larger versions of these for non-automobile traffic:

https://www.magneticmicrosphere.com/ckfinder/userfiles/image...

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Many northern (and some southern) cities have a skyway system which connects pedestrians on the second floor. Out of the weather, comfortable temperature year round. Let the cars have the icy slippery roads at ground level, no need for a sidewalk near the street. Once you leave your car head to second floor and go where you want to be. The second floor rents are the highest because that is where people are.

Building tunnels is expensive. Building bridges for cars is expensive, but a bridge that only needs to handle humans is much cheaper a 500kg fatso is much lighter than a 500kg fatso in a 4000kg SUV.

i agree with you generally. let's put express lanes underground (for both cars and trains), since they're prioritizing getting places quickly over easy access.

but to be fair, that's more (sometimes much more) expensive. not only because of the digging required to put the lanes/tracks underground, but also the extra things like ventilation systems and pedestrian exits/corridors.

I recall Toronto had a labyrinth of passage ways under ground, with shops etc. It connected to the subway and it was very convenient. Guess they built under ground due to the weather?

Yes, the PATH is vast and convenient, and a prime commercial real estate, it feels like a dwarven city from a RPG game :). IMHO such labyrinth could never be retro fitted if it wasn't planned beforehand though.

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